“Will there be an Islamic conquest of Europe?” asks Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna on Sunday.

"May God preserve the memory of the Armenian people. Memories should not be watered down or forgotten; memory is a source of peace and of the future."

A spokesperson for the Pope said the Armenian phrase Medz Yeghern, which translates as the “great evil” or the “great catastrophe”, was preferred to genocide.

“We are still faced with the question of the relationship between recognition and response in regard to these events" - Archbishop Michael Jackson.

Weekend of events recalls the 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923.

Pontiff calls on heads of state and international organisations to recognise the truth of what happened in Armenian genocide in which 1.5m lost their lives.